Monday, September 26, 2011

On a Bender

N: Jeanne and I both enjoy books that don't fit squarely into a niche, romances or books with strong romantic elements that bend the genre lines. So today we're chatting about those.

J: You know, that always sounds hinky. In a Bend-it-like-Beckham kind of way. (Speaking of Genre Bending)

N: Bwhahaha! I didn't start out reading as much romance as I do now. I discovered science fiction (and comic books) and mystery first. I read YA romances without realizing that's what they were, courtesy of my local library and the Scholastic Book Club, but I didn't read romance as an adult. I did read historical fiction with romance in it, but I didn't pay much attention when the romance genre exploded in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I read a handful of those early sagas, but I was in school, preoccupied with trying to decide where my life was going. I stuck to the genres I'd come to know better.

J: Nancy, you and I kind of followed the same path on this. I too read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, as well as a lot of historical fiction. I also read a lot of biographies when I was younger.

N: Once I started reading romance, however, I was hooked. Even when reading other genres, I now much prefer books that have a strong romantic plot line to those that don't, although I'll settle for a pretty low threshold of romance in a thriller. A couple of years back, I read a debut military science fiction novel with an interesting premise. It was well done but didn't draw me in, and I realized that was because there was no romance in it. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. So I didn't read the next book.

The series is now in hardcover, so it clearly has many avid readers. I just don't happen to be among them.

N: The current market is doing a lot to make me happy. Romance is slowly, sometimes grudgingly, allowing elements from other genres, like action, magic, and suspense, to assume prominent roles. At the same time, romance is establishing a strong presence in science fiction, fantasy and in mystery, bending the genre lines to a degree that wouldn't have been possible several years ago. I love historical and contemporary romances that are pure romance--nothing extra added in, but I also love the extra elements crossing genres. So today's blog is about the line benders.

A couple of books I recently put me in mind of this change. One was Meljean Brook's The Iron Duke, which I read because Barbara Vey recommended it when I interviewed her at Dragon*Con. It's steampunk, with a dark, gritty, distinct world. The worldbuilding and the dark tone are worthy of science fiction, but the romance is the core of the story. The setting seems to be around the turn of the last century, considering the references to King Edward.

The title character saved England from invaders known as The Horde. The heroine is a police inspector on the trail of a killer who dumped a body onto the hero's house. He joins her because, well, it's personal now, doubly so when he learns he knew and respected the victim who drew her to his home. Pursuing the killer drags them into a conspiracy to kill the thousands of English men and women, including the two of them, who carry Horde technology they can't live without.

Conspiracy to commit mass murder is more common in thrillers than in romance. There's the worldbuilding, as I said, and the dark, gritty tone. Oh, and zombies, who technically belong to horror but have begun cropping up in romance.

J: That's another mindbender, isn't it? I mean zombies? In Romance? Seriously? But I've been seeing it too. Since you mentioned it to me, I picked up Iron Duke. haven't had a chance to read it yet though.

N: I know you'll enjoy it. The other book was Bloodlands, by Christine Cody, who also writes the Vampire Babylon series as Chris Marie Green. Now, I'm not a huge fan of vampire books, particularly not of vampire heroes. But I am a big fan of post-apocalyptic stories, and this is a post-apocalyptic vampire romance Western. Yes, really. I debated with myself in the store for some time, fearing this could be truly terrible, but I couldn't resist that combination of elements.

While I found the first quarter a bit slow, it was good enough that I felt it was going to get better. So I kept reading. Once the bad guy appeared, things picked up quickly. The hero is a vampire searching for his lost (human) love in the wreck of civilization. People kill monsters--vampires, shifters, and others--so he doesn't want anyone to know what he is. He has become very good at passing for human. The heroine is part of an isolated community with secrets to keep.

Naturally, his quest and her secrets collide in the midst of the final confrontation against the villain who wants to wipe out the heroine's community. Despite the paranormal elements and the setting, this book reads like a romance. But it's published by ROC--perhaps because HEA isn't guaranteed at the end of the book, and romance requires that.

J: This is another one I'm going to have to read. I mean vampire westerns? Really? But this sounds quite good.

N: I liked it a lot. I'd like to see some continuing couples in romance, romantic arcs that don't tie up with HEA at the end of the book. The popularity of Eve Dallas and Roarke among romance readers implies that's do-able, but it isn't happening so far. Speaking of genre benders, those books are, first and foremost, serial killer police procedurals. The romantic arc, though, is much more intense than is usual in the mystery/suspense genre. It's a line bender. I'm not featuring it here, though, because with the latest book just out, I don't want us to spoil New York to Dallas for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

J: I'd love to see more of this too, Nancy. Her series is also a futuristic, and Nora is known to frequently bring other paranormal elements, like witchcraft and psychic abilities.

N: You know I loved Nora's Sign of Seven trilogy, and that actually had horror elements in it. I don't usually read horror. Jessica Andersen's Nightkeepers are romance with strong, strong fantasy elements. Jon Land's Caitlin Strong series are thrillers with a strong romance element. C. S. Harris's Sebastian St. Cyr novels are mysteries, but Sebastian's love life plays a prominent role.

I'm also seeing a lot of urban fantasy with romance-like plots but romantic arcs that continue beyond the end of the first book. Laura Anne Gilman's Retrievers are a prime example. Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels books (starting with Magic Bites) have become increasingly romantic as the series continued, with the romantic arc being a driving element in the last couple of books.

J: As you know, I love the Retriever Series as well. Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris's Adept series (although there hasn't been a book out in that series for several years) has quite the long arc. The ongoing/developing romance in The Adept is subtle, but quite good. The longer arc on the romance seems to actually be more intense in some ways than in a one-book.

N: I just started M. J. Scott's Shadow Kin, which is technically urban fantasy but starts out just like a romance. The heroine is an assassin with paranormal abilities who comes to kill the hero. He has abilities of his own and turns the tables. I'm assuming this couple will stick together in future books, but we'll see. I haven't finished it. The author's website describes a different couple for the next book, so maybe this one ends with HEA. The book is unusual, at least in my experience, in that both characters are written in first person.

N: Anne Aguirre's RITA-nominated Sirantha Jax series (first one is Grimspace) are also prime examples. There's a science fiction primary plot, but the romance between Jax and March is iKathern ntense and often painful. With one more book to go, I'm hoping for a big payoff there.

J: As you know, I love Anne Aguirre's novels. Grimspace was superb. And since you sent it to me, I'm guessing that's why I liked it so much!

So, we'd love to know, what are you reading now? Do you like your romances straight, with no paranormal or other elements? Or do you like a bit of boom or magic or other paranormal elements with your romance?

81 comments:

I'm reading Joyce Lamb's romantic suspense books back to back. This series from her has paranormal elements. I do enjoy paranormals, but I don't read them as much as I did a couple of years ago. I think it was fatigue. I'm new to steampunk, but I also enjoyed "The Iron Duke."

Jeanne and Nancy, what a fun post. Actually I went slightly outside my normal reading ranges when I read Soulless last week and just loved it. Sometimes a change is as good as a holiday. The Iron Duke sounds good. I'd heard about it before - must check it out.

I liked Nora 7 trilogy too and I'm definitely NOT a horror fan. But all the things I love about her writing were there. Strong family like friendships, realistic world and premise, great characters and romance.

As kid, I read a lot of Sci-fi and loved historical fiction and later historical romance sagas like Roberta Gellis wrote. I've yet to find another writer who gives me the same satisfaction and joy with sagas like that. Not popular today.

Just finished Anita Clenny's newest book which will be out October or November. Excellent series. I also like The Sentinel Wars series by Shannon Butcher.

Great article and I enjoy a good book set in the steampunk era so I'll check that one out.

I love romance novels of all sorts, historical, regency, paranormal and have to say that a vampire western sounds kind of intriguing. ; )Currently, I'm reading Christopher Farnsworth's THE PRESIDENT'S VAMPIRE .. not a romance but so far a very good read. : )Want to finish it before some of my fave romance writers come out with their newest books starting at the end of this month. Happy Reading!

Nancy and JeanneGreat post I love my romance I am not big on vampires but yes I do read stories with them in and I love romantic suspense with boom and murders etc, love stories with paranormal elements in them as well and I do love shapeshifters.I read a lot of historical but love the other genres as well but I do have to have a HEA.

At the moment I am reading Anne Lethbridge's The Gamekeeper's Lady but I have not long finished Jo's The Avenger what a fantastic story that one is and next up will be Jeanne's new one Deadly Little Lies and I am looking forward to that one

JenniferTanner said: I'm reading a book on the rise and fall of the A&P. Does this make me a real nerd?

As in the A&P Grocery stores? I used to love those. Or is it about something else? Grins.

Yes, it makes you a book nerd, but since you're in the company of book nerds, you're in GOOD company! Ha! (my latest non-fiction on the bedside table is about quantam physics being akin to magic, so, yeah...)

I loves me my romance with a heavy dose of paranormal. And suspense. And other things, Nancy. Love and romance are part of life, and they should be included in many more things than they do show up in (and acknowledged as such)!

Fun post, Nancy and Jeanne. I love romances that pull in other types of story lines. I'm a big paranormal, urban fantasy and post-apocalyptic, and dystopian fan. Which is sort of funny since any of those would totally freak me out in real life. :) I like all of those elements in the romance I read as well as YA, which I also love. Dystopian has gotten big in YA.

Oops, forgot to say what I'm reading. I've been on deadlines lately so I haven't had a lot of fun reading time, but when I have I'm reading A Game of Thrones. I want to read it before I watch the first season of the show.

I don't like run-of-the-mill romances; never have. When I was young, I only read them to shock my folks - and to get them to let me read horror... hehe and it worked like a charm!Then I found out about vampire romance and I was completely hooked! Then, I began writing them too; as I didn't come across them all that often and wanted a particular type (and of course I wrote that type because of what I enjoyed reading). Now, I have a blog chock full of those stories as well as stories of the strange and unusual.

Great post - I'm another one who started off in the sci-fi and mystery area, then moved to romance.

I must admit to being very unfashionable with my reading loves - romcom, gritty romantic suspense/romantic thriller, sports romances, contemps and WW2 romance. I don't like much paranormal unless it's 'light woo-woo' (ghosts and witches and angels), though some authors, like Jess Andersen, Terri Garey and Virginia Kantra obviously have tempted me into the water!

I'm also fussy with my historicals - preferring Westerns. I do enjoy great English historicals or Regencies, but have no love for Scottish or Irish romances. I like historicals with punch and gusto or with humour.

If I read outside of romance, it tends to be thrillers (eg Thomas Perry) with plots that fascinate me as a concept. I prefer there to be romance threads, but I'm fussy *g*. Either do them well or don't bother!

Jane, I'm not familiar with Joyce Lamb. Can you tell us a bit more about those books? I know what you mean about fatigue, I think. Sometimes when I immerse myself in a series for a while, even one I love, I reach a saturation point and have to step away.

Most of the steampunk I've seen has been in SFF. I haven't seen a lot of it in romance.

Sia, that's a great description of the Sign of Seven. Those are the things I loved about it, as well as the quest story element that brought in the paranormal factors.

Can you tell us a little more about the Sentinel Wars and Anita Clenny?

Sounds as though you read a lot of the same things Jeanne and I did. Have you seen Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series? The first book, Shards of Honor, has strong romantic elements in it. So does its sequel, Barrayar. Then the series jumped to these characters' son, Miles.

The books are best read in order, but one of the later books, A Civil Campaign, is about Miles's courtship and very romantic. So is Winterfair Gifts, a novella about his wedding.

Trish, many of the elements in paranormal and urban fantasy would freak me out in real life, too. And an apocalypse would probably do me in. But I love reading about them, as you do. The stakes are high at the end of civilization.

I'm not big on zombies and vampires, but I really enjoyed Deanna Raybourne's THE DEAD TRAVEL FAST--historical set in vampire country. Wonderful hero.

I just finished an advanced copy of Elizabeth Hoyt's SCANDELOUS DESIRES,due our Nov 1. Very very sexy pirate tale. Again, not my usual fare, but I loved it.

I'm now reading Theresa Weir's memoir--yes, memoir--THE ORCHARD. It's wonderful. Her late husband was an apple farmer. One of the reasons he's her late husband is the pesticides used in farming. The great thing about this book is that it's not preachy. It's very personal, reads like a 1st person novel, difficult to put down.

Theresa's PALE IMMORAL, wrirren as Anne Frasier, is a fine vampire-ish novel--one of the few that grabbed and held me.

I read fiction because I'm interested in the characters and their relationships. So whether I'm reading romance, mystery, women's fiction, literary fiction, or some blend of genres, my interest in the relationships is what keeps me engaged with the individual book, the series, the author's work. I love the continuing stories of Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott and Dwight Bryant, Julia Spencer Fleming's Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne, Marie Force's Sam Holland and Nick Cappuano, Science fiction has never been a genre that held wide appeal for me, but I have read and enjoyed books by Sharon Shinn, Linnea Sinclair, Wen Spencer, Catherine Asaro, and Lois McMaster Bujold.

Today I'm reading the short story collection Jane Austen Made Me Do It, which includes stories by Jo Beverley, Lauren Willig, Syrie James, Adriana Trigiani, and other favorite authors. Next up is Jo's The Avenger. I do like variety. :)

Janga, we read a lot of the same authors. I think continuing couples are more common in mystery than any other genre, though they've popped up in SFF at times. Bujold and Asaro have continuing couples.

I like variety so I'm all for mixed genres. I too started out with science fiction and suspense and then gothics. And Kathleen Woodiwiss got me really into romance. But I truly like having other elements and I need to try steampunk which is new to me.

For those who inquired about THE PRESIDENT'S VAMPIRE, I honestly don't know much more than that Christopher Farnsworth is a screenwriter by trade and also wrote BLOOD OATH, the first book featuring the vampire to world leaders, Nathaniel Cade. My hubby turned me onto TPV and is reading BLOOD OATH now. Of course, we're ass backwards but I don't mind. TPV is fast moving, full of action and even some monsters (including Bin Laden). It's not for the faint of heart but will have you cheering for Cade. btw - BLOOD OATH is going to be made into a movie. Hurray.

Nancy, Soulless is by Gail Carriger and I reviewed it here: http://www.theromancedish.com/2011/09/soulless-has-soul.html Basically it's about an alternative Victorian Britain where the vamps and werewolves have become part of society. Our heroine is a very straight talking spinster a la Amelia Peabody who has the power to leach the supernatural powers from a vamp or a werewolf if she's touching them. The hero's gorgeous - a really grumpy Scottish werewolf earl who starts talking in brogue when he's emotionally affected. Big sigh. Lovely romance! The voice in this book is amazing - it's funny and ironic and clever. I think it would appeal to you.

My sister and I have such different reading taste. She will call me up and say, "Oh, I read the BEST book....you would hate it" Its become a huge joke b/tw us. She loves books where Angst and Sorrow are the main characters - what I dub "book club books" Grins.

Me? Well ya'll know I love my HEA and things blowing up, so...yep, very different taste.

Anna, as soon as you mentioned Gail Carriger, I remembered Soulless. I've read it and enjoyed it though I'm not current on the rest of the series. I've heard it called Steampunk, but there didn't seem to be a lot of steam tech, as best I remember. I think your label of Alternate Victorian Britain fits better.

I love paranormal elements in my romance. Doesn't have to be heavy and doesn't have to be dark - but it puts me in a separate world from the one that I experience everyday. Love science fiction, I cut my teeth on Edgar Rice Burroughs when I was little (thank you to my older brothers who actually bought the books and got me hooked). Can't say that I'm a big BOOM girl but I'm not opposed to it - I just don't seek it out. I have the Iron Duke here on the TBR pile. WIth you guys recommendation, I may bump it up to the top.

Nancy, I haven't read enough Steampunk to say. The only other book that seems to be designated as SP that I've read is the Percy Parker book. They've got airships and steam technology powering some cool gizmos and the baddies definitely have access to some diabolical steam machinery. So I think it probably is considered Steampunk. I'm definitely going to read the rest of the series. Love her voice.

I don't mind a bit of magic and paranormal in my romance. Currently i'm re-reading the Twilight Series but i have put it down to read 'Anna Campbells - My Reckless Surrender'. I love the paranormal aspects in the twilight romance.

I've been wanting to try steampunk, and haven't yet. I may use The Iron Duke as my introduction.

And I'm just plain big on series, period, so I'd be all over a series that arcs a couple over more than one book. Lots of series do this with the secondary characters--continuing characters through the book, but you can't ever make them a major force in the first book, or it won't be allowed to have "romance" on the spine, and that's important to me because that's the heart of what I love.

Ah well. *heavy sigh* Genres do seem to be shifting and bending, so I guess we'll see what they morph into.

Oh, and what I'm reading...Nothing, at the moment :0( because I've been too busy with work and other home-related stuff, but I've got Lord Of The Fading Lands on the nightstand...waiting.. .patiently.....waiting...

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September Releases

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Donna MacMeans, Trish Milburn, and Nancy Northcott will all be in Atlanta for the Moonlight and Magnolias conference in Decatur, Georgia September 30 through October 2nd. If you're in the area, stop by for the booksigning. We'd love to see you.

Redeeming the Rogue by Donna MacMeans received a 4.5 star TOP PICK! review from Romantic Times Magazine.

Living in Color by Trish Milburn is now available on Kindle, Smashwords and at barnesandnoble.com for the Nook.